1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a remote control system for one or more semiconductor manufacturing apparatuses, and more particularly, it relates to such a remote control system, a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus and a remote operation device, in which a local area network system including one or more semiconductor manufacturing apparatuses and a supervisory device in the form of a host device can be accessed by the remote operation device with a communication means by way of communication lines so as to maintain the semiconductor manufacturing apparatuses under remote control through the host device.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating the configuration of a known local area network (LAN) system in semiconductor manufacturing apparatuses.
In the past, in facilities such as factories for manufacturing semiconductors, a plurality (N) of semiconductor manufacturing apparatuses D′1, D′2 . . . D′N are connected through serial cables 1 such as RS232C cables, etc., with a terminal server TS′ which is in turn connected through an Ethernet card to a host device H′ thereby to constitute a local area network (LAN), so that monitors, events, alarms, lot processing, etc., of the semiconductor manufacturing apparatuses are supervised and controlled.
The LAN system of such a configuration is a so-called closed network in which communications can be made only between the host device H′ and the terminal server TS′ in the same network or only between the respective semiconductor manufacturing apparatuses D′1, D′2, . . . , D′N.
Therefore, the host device H′ in such a known network is not provided with any drivers, software and the like necessary for performing the following basic functions for connection with terminals existing in remote places and host devices in other networks (hereinafter, referred to remote operation devices); (1) provision of a point-to-point protocol (PPP) and a user authentication function; (2) a serial communications function and an automatic call incoming function with respect to modems and terminal adapters; and (3) a routing function of routing an Internet protocol (IP) to different networks. In addition, the host device H′ or each of the semiconductor manufacturing apparatuses D′1, D′2, . . . , D′N is not provided with any communication means such as modems, terminal adapters, etc., and any equipment such as access servers, etc., necessary for remote control operation, as a consequence of which it is impossible for the host device or each semiconductor manufacturing apparatus to communicate with the remote terminals.
On the other hand, there is a demand for accessing a host device connected with semiconductor manufacturing apparatuses from a remote operation device to display the same screen as that of the host device for remote control operation.